Chapter Twenty-Five
Lady Margaret was causing a commotion. She had had enough of this island with so little for her entertainment.
Linnet thought she was probably missing the crowd of nuns she could make run around after her.
The few female servants at the Priory were too busy and too old to care about an upstart Lady trying to make busy-work for them.
She was berating her maid, who was trying to explain that she may wish to leave the island now but the way was under water, when Guy stepped into the outer courtyard in his rich suit, face washed and hair combed.
‘My Lady, can I help?’
‘Yes! This idiot won’t follow my orders! We need to leave now and go to Berwick to meet my Lord. I will not wait any longer.’
Guy looked at the servant with some pity.
‘Of course, Lady Margaret, you are eager to see Lord Edmund again, I understand. We can leave now if you wish, I will ask one of the fishermen to use his boat. Does your horse travel well in a boat?’
Lady Margaret looked unsure. No horses travelled well on boats, that was the truth of it. In a small fisherman’s boat, they would be sitting next to a frantic heap of kicking horse, probably shitting itself in fear.
‘Well maybe we can wait a little longer. When can we leave? I must be on my way.’
Guy spoke to one of the servants who was passing.
‘We could leave this evening but it will be too late to head off to Berwick then. The tides are right tomorrow after Lauds and we could then ride straight on.’
‘I suppose I can spend one more night here if I must. But, Guy, make sure I have more blankets, the room they’ve put me in is too cold! I am too thin for this climate.’ She made a pretence of shivering, looking at him with pleading wide eyes.
He took the bait and promised ‘the softest blankets I can find for my Lady’s delicate skin’, which had her preening like a pampered child.
She went back to her room, to change her clothes again no doubt, and Guy saw Linnet watching.
They shared an amused grin, each knowing what the other was thinking.
For a brief moment, it took her back to their good years.
It hadn’t been all violence and fear, had it?
No, he’d given her a lot, not only the money she’d taken.
‘What have you done with the duck?’ The Prior’s abrupt question startled her.
‘I didn’t think Lady Margaret would like to share the parlour with a duck,’ she answered, looking him boldly in the eye.
Would he mention the book? They both knew she must have taken it and that he’d first removed it from her room.
She knew he’d lost confidence in her but then she had nothing more to lose by standing up to him now.
He smiled thinly but didn’t say any more.
She wanted to ask him about the manuscripts Isabelle had shown her on Cuddy’s Isle but didn’t dare bring up the child’s name, so kept quiet.
She wondered why he was hiding them, then it came to her.
If they had valuable manuscripts, Bishop Foxe would want them for Durham.
Or maybe it would increase what the Priory had to pay to Durham in dues.
She forced herself to keep meeting his gaze. He seemed taller now that she was standing right next to him and looking up at him. His hands were flexing as he spoke. She imagined those hands tying the rope that hanged Tom and flinched.
He had things to hide, but was he a killer?
‘Shouldn’t you be in the Scriptorium?’
She nodded and left without saying any more. She was turning it over in her mind. Would the Prior have killed Tom? Had he known something that made him a threat? He had been the main fisherman who took him to Inner Farne, was that where the manuscripts came from?
She kept thinking of those manuscript pages. If only the Prior would let her look through them properly when he did bring them into the Priory – but of course he just wanted her gone now.
Luke was in the Scriptorium. He looked like a coiled spring, wrapped around his desk and stabbing his pen down as he scribed.
‘Luke, be careful, you’re going to rip the parchment!’ She went to take his pen off him.
‘Get off me, don’t touch me!’ he yelled.
Startled, she took a step back.
‘Bad enough that you’re in here with your sin and your wiles, never, never touch me.’ He was hissing now, eyes wild.
‘I’m not the one who was sinning in the stables last night.’ She hadn’t meant to shout that out either, she was becoming careless.
He stood up suddenly, sweeping the parchment off the desk in his haste, and in two strides was shouting in her face. ‘You didn’t see anything. I wasn’t doing anything. I am not the sinner. I am not the sin!’
She shrank back from the spittle. A noise from the door and Luke broke off.
It was Guy.
‘Not interrupting a lover’s quarrel, am I?’ His voice was smooth as silk, a danger sign Linnet knew well.
‘Don’t be absurd. I am a monk in holy orders.’ Luke blushed, probably at the thought of what that meant and of what Linnet had seen but controlling himself with an effort.
‘I’ve come to fetch Linnet. Lady Margaret wants her things ready and her servant is busy elsewhere.’
Linnet was not so angry she didn’t feel irked by the thought that she could be loaned out to any passing gentry as a pair of servile hands, but she took the chance to leave Luke. Perhaps he would have calmed down by the time she returned.
It was as dull as she had feared. She folded the linen once again, more carefully this time. Lady Margaret was watching her, puzzled and annoyed.
‘Why can’t you fold this properly? What is your difficulty? Are you getting ink on my sheets? Be careful!’
Linnet refrained from answering as she wished.
She knew nothing of folding linen in this particular way because it wasn’t what she did.
She scribed. If Lady Margaret could do it better, then maybe Lady Margaret could fold her own linen.
She thought wistfully about a preacher she’d heard at one of the market towns they’d passed through when she was a child.
Shouting about how everyone was the same, why did the gentry get everything done for them? He wasn’t left to shout for long.
She tried to tame the linen, straightening edges and smoothing it again, taking quiet satisfaction as she saw her inky thumb leaving a little dark mark just under the fold. Lady Margaret stared at her for a moment before turning her attention back to Guy, twitching her skirts in irritation.
Their voices were low but Linnet could hear Lady Margaret laughing and Guy’s murmured responses. She wondered if Guy thought he was making her jealous. She’d hated the way he charmed other women when they’d been together but those times were long past.
As she worked on the folds, she saw more paper lying on the table nearby. She glanced up. Lady Margaret and Guy were by the window, pointing and laughing at something in the courtyard. She slipped it amongst her skirts. She could at least get something out of this stupid waste of time.
With a loud caw, Pol flew into the room through the open door.
Lady Margaret gave a little screech of fear and fell into Guy who caught her gallantly.
Isabelle came running after him, shouting at him to come back.
Linnet was relieved to see she didn’t seem any the worse for her recent brush with Godfreyd’s dose.
Perhaps too pale, and still coughing, but the spark was back in her dark eyes and Linnet thought Pol looked relieved – if a bird could look relieved – fluttering happily around her again.
Guy let go of Lady Margaret and started trying to drive the bird out. He came close enough to almost catch him, Pol slowing to let him get nearly there, but then he flew up to the rafters and cawed louder.
Lady Margaret looked at Isabelle. ‘Isn’t this your girl?’ she asked Linnet. ‘Why isn’t she busy doing something useful?’
‘I ain’t her girl.’ Back on her home ground, Isabelle was her usual self, insolent and confident. ‘I do things for the Prior, ain’t nothing I do for her.’
‘And is this your bird?’ Lady Margaret gave another little scream as Pol flew back across the room, before settling on the bed, waddling about and using his beak to tear at the bedclothes.
‘Yes, he’s mine.’
‘But he can’t just come in here – you just can’t come in here and start wrecking my room.’ Lady Margaret looked annoyed but she was smiling a little at the stubborn child and her funny pet.
‘I’s just following Pol, I was trying to get him out of your room, not in it.’ Isabelle looked back at her with an air of angelic innocence.
‘Well, can you get him out?’ Guy was not charmed by her, that much was clear. He’d never liked children, never thrown a penny at a group of little boys kicking a stone around, never smiled at a small girl finding joy in a puddle.
Isabelle whistled and Pol hopped over from the bed, after a quick look up and down to make sure he wasn’t missing anything, and they left.
Linnet thought Isabelle had wanted to have another look at Lady Margaret’s things. Pol was a useful ally for her. She could have called the bird over any time she wanted.
Lady Margaret turned back to Linnet to resume complaining, but was interrupted by the return of her maid, so she started shouting at her to do the linen properly.
Linnet hurried after Isabelle. She wanted to see how she was. The child was standing in the courtyard looking thoughtful, Pol hopping about nearby.
‘How are you feeling now, Isabelle? Do you feel sick still?’
Isabelle shrugged that off, that was another time, she was better now. ‘That Lady likes that man doesn’t she? I don’t. He don’t like Pol.’
‘Yes, I think she does, and no, he’s not very nice.’
‘Will he do bad things to her?’
Linnet thought about it for a moment. Lady Margaret was of value to him, not like a servant girl. He’d have to find another object for his violence.
‘No, he wouldn’t dare. He’s careful.’
Isabelle nodded, approving. ‘I like being careful too.’
Linnet saw Isabelle was eating something. ‘What do you have there, Isabelle? Did you take something from Lady Margaret’s room?’
Isabelle swallowed the sweetmeat hurriedly and changed the subject. ‘Did you fetch the duck?’
‘Yes, she’s in the Scriptorium now. The Prior knows and isn’t pleased but he’s not taken her back.’
Isabelle insisted on going to see the duck to make sure it was okay. It shrank away from Pol who seemed offended at another bird drawing Isabelle’s attention. While she was gently patting it, he went over to his hiding place and started carefully pulling away the rushes.
‘Did you know he hides things here?’ Linnet asked Isabelle.
She nodded, still playing with the duck who was looking grimly straight ahead, not enjoying the attention.
Linnet had a closer look at what Pol was digging up. That dead vole which he proceeded to carefully tear apart and eat. He was still tearing at it when Luke returned from prayers.
He looked at the bird eating the rotten vole and the child playing with the duck and raised one eyebrow at Linnet. She felt foolish. It was hardly the organised scriptorium she dreamed of.
She drove the child and raven out, Pol protesting at having to leave the rest of his meal, although he quickly covered it again.